Former Ohio State center LeCharles Bentley considered the question — are linemen or running backs more responsible for the “three yards and a cloud of dust” trademark long associated with the Buckeyes offense? — and did not miss a beat.

“There is no dust without the offensive line,” Bentley said. “Fact.”

Being a team player, Bentley steered clear of another fact: Those three yards wouldn’t have happened without the scarlet-and-gray road graders.

When Orlando Pace was tapped last week to enter the College Football Hall of Fame, the former Ohio State offensive tackle attracted attention not only to himself but also to the long list of excellent Buckeyes linemen through the ages. This was a good thing for a change, for attention is something that linemen learn to despise. Other than the occasional pancake block — an achievement at which Pace had no equal — the only time an O-lineman gets noticed is when he commits a penalty.

But here was Pace being singled out for churning up dust and helping turn those three yards into 5.5 — what Ohio State’s running backs averaged in 1995, the year that Eddie George won the Heisman Trophy with a per-carry average of 5.9 yards.

Pace helped make George famous, just as John Hicks opened the door for Archie Griffin to win back-to-back Heismans in 1974 and ’75 by opening holes for Griffin the two previous years.

If George and Griffin were the headlines, Pace and Hicks were the ink. The tackles rank as two of the best Ohio State linemen, right there with Jim Parker, of whom it is said — by a now-graying generation — that he could simultaneously flatten a refrigerator while blocking a defensive end out of the play.

The list of distinguished offensive linemen who played in the Horseshoe includes Nick Mangold, Korey Stringer and Jim Lachey. There was Chris Ward and Ted Smith, Dave Foley and Jeff Uhlenhake. And many others, so many that it could be argued that the often-undervalued position was the key ingredient in helping define Ohio State as the power it has become.

“Why not?” asked Earle Bruce, signaling where he stands on the issue. “If you take care of business up front, you’re going to move the football, and you’re going to win.”

Before serving as Ohio State coach (1979-87), Bruce worked for Woody Hayes in the 1960s coaching offensive linemen. His allegiances and heart remain in the trenches.

“I know what they mean to the team,” he said. “And I know if you don’t knock the hell out of the other guy, you don’t move him.”

The brotherhood is strong. Bentley, a first-team All-American in 2001, is especially pleased with Pace’s hall of fame honor because he is “one of us.”

These hulking masses of stacked timber share a bond that probably goes deeper than other position groups’. They share, along with defensive linemen, the closest working proximity to other teammates, but also a similar essence that glues their connection.

“Most are introverts,” Bentley said. “We’re the guys in junior high and high school who were not the most-popular kids. We’re not the homecoming king, and we’re not getting the good-looking girls. We’re not the guys who can buy the cool clothes off the rack. It’s a position where you’re always playing second fiddle, so there’s a herd mentality with us.”

In a sense, the offensive line is set apart because it is so set together — “homogenized,” as Bentley put it, explaining that few other position groups combine players “from middle-of-nowhere Iowa with one from inner-city Ohio,” he said.

That is not just one man talking. Hicks, who finished second in the Heisman voting in 1973, said half-jokingly — I think — that Ohio State’s great tradition of offensive linemen “is why Archie and Eddie are making movies and commercials.”

“Archie is a special person and a dear, dear friend,” Hicks said. “But Archie has good posture. His knees are good. I got a bad back, knees and hands.”

And that is why Pace’s induction matters so much to other linemen. He is getting his due, which means they are, too.